It's just a moment in the snow

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It's just a moment in the snow

Mid-winter. Halfway between here and there. Waiting for the snow to fall. Waiting for the snow to disappear. These are strange days. You find things in your refrigerator, cranberry sauce, a few pieces of ham, left over from Christmas. The poinsettias remain in bloom. Christmas wreaths still bedeck more than a few doors. In corners, and under the carpet, stray pine needles hide.

They're props from a play that closed weeks ago. It was a good play, but that was then and this is now. Now it's time to get serious, time for resolutions, for getting focused. Last year is over. A new year has begun.

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True love endures all things

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True love endures all things

I don't know his name or where he comes from or where he goes when he leaves the hospital. I don't know if he has children, a job, a house, a car, a life that's more than a vigil. I know nothing about him except that he sits in a hospital chair in the afternoons beside a wife who cannot walk or talk or reach out even to touch his hand, a wife who may not even know he is there….

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Dear Bill Clinton, Beware Puppy Love

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Dear Bill,

So you went and got yourself a puppy. Oh, I know he is beautiful and loving and adorable and he smells so sweet and his fur is soft and when he looks up at you with those big copper eyes, you know there isn't anything in the world you wouldn't do for him. A ball of fur that sheds and drools and whimpers in the night, and you're totally hooked. Go figure. But, hey, I understand. I've been there, right there, in your shoes.

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True friendships can easily pass test of time and distance

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We met for lunch Thursday. I hadn't seen her in so many years that I was afraid I might not recognize her. But I did - instantly. There she was waving to me from a table, same blonde hair, same big smile. People don't change. They just become more of who they are.

We were good friends for a while, way back when friendship was easy, when every day was play day. We were pregnant together, due within weeks of each other. We were pregnant for the first time - excited, scared and young.

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A yard sale is mostly sport

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It's a curious custom, taking things you don't want and no longer need, dragging them to the front lawn, marking them with a price tag, then selling them.

But that's what we do. A dime for a Johnny Tilliston record. It's not high finance. It's trading.

At the end of the day, all you have is a pocketful of change, but it's like when you were a kid and shook coins out of a piggy bank. It's found money. And it's fun.

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A wish at the top of summer

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A wish at the top of summer

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a ferris wheel when in pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring moons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after." - Natalie Babbitt

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'A Summer Place' Revisited

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The last time I saw them they were two kids, in love, newly married, kissing in front of God and everyone as the boat that dropped them off at Pine Island sped away. The music soared, the lights came on, the film went black and that was it. Johnny and Molly were together.

Fast forward 38 years.

To celebrate the start of a summer season of classic films, American Movie Classics dusted off the 1959 Warner Brothers hit "A Summer Place," and showed…

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Admire yes, but also follow Mother Teresa's example

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Admire yes, but also follow Mother Teresa's example

'Smile at each other - it doesn't matter who it is - and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other.' - Mother Teresa

She is the antithesis of everything we worship in this country. She is old and we revere young. She is wrinkled and stooped, and we admire smooth and tall. She is humble and we're used to boastful. She is poor and we idolize wealth.

She is a bent, old woman who drapes cloth on her body only to cover herself, who doesn't dye her hair or work out or wear makeup or jewelry or spend even an ounce of energy worrying about what she looks like.

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The incredible wonders of life

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'What I wish is that I could do all the things I used to hate to do - cut the grass, wait in line."

That's what he said. And that's what I've thought about since Thursday night when he said it.

The young man was on "48 Hours," a boy from Milford who caught a wave on Martha's Vineyard the wrong way last Labor Day weekend and is now a paraplegic. "48 Hours" filmed his long, slow days of recovery and therapy and adjustment. It was a superb documentary because it didn't gloss over pain.

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Mother's Day Hokey, but Love Is Real

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So it's a hokey holiday. All those mushy cards. All that cold coffee and burned toast served on makeshift trays to tired mothers who would prefer to skip breakfast and sleep just a little longer. All the overpriced flowers that are dead in two days and perfumes that smell like bug spray and sweaters that are too big and pants that are too tight and housewares that you never use…

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She's an everyday kinda hero

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She's an everyday kinda hero

She has always rebounded. That's the thing. Push her down and she comes popping back like one of those weighted inflatable toys that kids can punch but can never topple over. She has persisted like the Energizer Bunny, and rallied like the Six Million Dollar Man, and though life has taken her breath away, time and time again, it has never been able to stop her. Just one more trip to the hospital. Just one more close call. Just one more step back from the starting line, but that's okay because we've been here before…

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'If I want to be good, I have to practice'

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Every afternoon she races in from school, raids the refrigerator, then heads for the piano.

"So how was your day?" I shout over Jimmy crack corn and I don't care.

"Fine," she answers, distracted, immediately lost in the notes of a song she has been drumming on her desk and rehearsing in her head throughout the day.

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